For weeks, we've been reporting on the mess seen in the statewide "recount" of Wisconsin's very close and very contentious April 5th Supreme Court election between Republican incumbent Justice David Prosser and his challenger, Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg.

To date, with about 25,000 "recounted" votes still to be canvassed from the now infamous Waukesha County, some 2,690 votes have been discovered during the "recount" to have been originally mistallied. That's according to the G.A.B.'s own figures, and includes hundreds of thousands of ballots which were simply re-tallied rather than counted by hand during the "recount," on the same computers which tallied them --- either correctly or incorrectly --- on Election Night.

31 out of the state's 72 counties counted some or most of their ballots by hand for the first time during the "recount" (including several of the largest counties). But, given the fact that supposedly "secured" ballot bags were discovered during the "recount" to have been "wide open" and not secured at all, with little or no explanation from officials, after being accessible for weeks by the same untrustworthy and partisan election officials, such as Waukesha's County's activist GOP County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, who screwed up the tabulation in the first place, how is it that anybody knows if the ballots finally counted by human beings are actually genuine?

We've been trying, with no small amount of frustration, to get a definitive answer from the G.A.B. on that question for the past week, as well as from the campaigns of both candidates in the race.

The G.A.B. generally agrees with the campaign of the election's current leader, incumbent Justice David Prosser, that broken security seals, opened ballot bags --- even some that are torn open and taped back shut with duct tape, as seen in Waukesha County this week (photos below) --- and other violations of chain of custody are of little concern. So long as the newly tabulated results largely match the results printed on the poll tapes by the computer tabulators at the end of Election Night on April 5th, that is, essentially, close enough for government work.

The G.A.B. and the Prosser campaign, as we confirmed with each directly, and as the G.A.B. indicated on a recent post to their website published in the wake of the specific questions we've been asking them --- are placing their faith largely in the accuracy of the state's oft-failed, easily-manipulated, privately-manufactured electronic voting systems made by companies like Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia. They are also placing faith in their election official colleagues around the state.

All of which begs the question: What's the point of having a "recount," or of using security procedures and physical seals for the ballots after the election, if violations of those procedures and seals are of little concern to the state's top election agency?

Worse, if the results printed on the poll tapes are the ultimate proof of the accuracy of results, what happens when --- as discovered among poll tapes from the City of Pewaukee in Waukesha County late last week --- the "recount" uncovers "Official Results Report" poll tapes dated a full seven days before the actual election was held?

Or, worse still, what happens when poll tapes failed to print at all on Election Day, as has been seen in a number of towns across the state?...

Faith-Based 'Recounts'

"Even if the container or [ballot] bag is somehow opened later, or if the chain of custody is broken," the G.A.B. wrote on their website in response to the concerns late last week, "election officials have the original print-out tape from the machine, as well as the electronic memory device from the machine. This enables election officials to determine the election night vote count."

Setting aside that the "recount" process in WI does not include examination of "the electronic memory device from the machine[s]" at all, the print-out tapes from the systems may enable election officials to know what the tabulation machines reported --- either accurately or inaccurately --- as the "election night vote count," but do those digital elements actually tell us what the intent of voters was? If they do, then why bother to have a "recount" at all?

"If the ballots had been tampered with between the election and the recount, there would be a break in the chain of custody and an unexplained difference in the results [of the 'recount']," says the G.A.B., suggesting that they seem to have little or no idea how election fraud may be carried out under their very own noses.

As reported here in great detail here over the past month, there were definitely violations and breaks in the chain of custody of thousands of ballots. If they had been gamed, in order to avoid getting caught in this very close, very high-stakes election --- for a 10-year term on the state Supreme Court during one of the most tumultuous periods in state history --- it's as simple as swapping in ballots to match the totals on the gamed poll tapes. (Gaming those tapes can be as simple as seen in this clip from HBO's Emmy-nominated documentary Hacking Democracy.) If one happened to have blank ballots and knew those blank ballots would not be reconciled, even during the "recount" (since they do not do so in WI), and one had possession of the ballots for a full three weeks prior to the "recount" --- as, say, Kathy Nickolaus or any other election insider in the state of Wisconsin had --- it would be worth both the effort and the risk to avoid detection if one had gamed the front end, as discovery of the dirty deed during the "recount" would otherwise result in some very hard time.

But so long as the poll tapes generally match the "recounted" ballots, according to both the G.A.B. and the Prosser camp, there's no problem.

When we asked the Prosser campaign if they could confirm the authenticity of the ballots being counted in Waukesha and elsewhere where ballot bags were discovered with openings large enough to easily add or remove ballots, they had no concerns. Prosser spokesperson Brian J. Nemoir told The BRAD BLOG it all goes back to the machines which "spit out tape with a candidate total" on Election Night.

"You take those tape totals and compare them to the canvass totals," he explained, even though the canvass in WI doesn't actually include tallying of results, just a reconciliation of the number of ballots cast with the number of voters signed in to the poll books. "And then, finally, you have the recount. I think it's hard to conclude that anything was switched," says Nemoir.

Which Poll Tapes? The Ones Dated Seven Days Before the Election?

On Friday of last week, Barbara With, one of Kloppenburg's volunteer observers at the "recount" in Waukesha County, was startled to watch poll tapes being counted --- in this case, so-called "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails" (VVPATs) printed out by Sequoia AVC Edge touch-screen machines from the City of Pewaukee --- even though the dates on them read March 30, 2011, a full seven days prior to the April 5th election.

The "Official Results Report" poll tape was dated 03/30/2011, with a time stamp of 1:40am. No one seemed to know why, according to With.

"They confirmed the tape with the bad numbers was not a test," With told The BRAD BLOG. "The clerk [from the City of Pewaukee] said 'No, this is not a test. This is it. Who knows why the numbers are wrong?'"

With says that when the clerk "was shown the piece of paper with the mismatched date, she swore, 'No, these votes were taken on April 5th, it's just a mismatched date in the machine.'"

One of the people overseeing the count on behalf of Waukesha County also instructed workers to proceed and count the results on the tapes after the questions arose about the date and time stamps. "I witnessed Barbara Hansen examine the tape to assure workers that they were not counting a test," says With.

The observer from the Prosser campaign was nonplussed.

"The Prosser guy was saying, 'Ya know when your computer blanks out and the clock resets?' and I was like, 'No, that's January 1st, 1980, not March 30, 2011!"

With, who had spent days as an observer at the "recount" in four other counties as well, couldn't recall how many of the mis-dated VVPAT votes were tallied for certain. "I don't remember, maybe 24, but I looked at every one of them," and they all had the wrong date, she says. She took a few blurry shots with her cell phone (as seen at right, and at the top of this article.)

Waukesha County, one of the most Republican-leaning in the state, hired Hansen, "a former deputy for the state Government Accountability Board and a 21-year employee of the state Elections Board," according to Lisa Sink at the Brookfield Patch, to assist retired Waukesha County Circuit Judge Robert Mawdsley in overseeing the count there.

Mawdsley had been appointed to do so by the Waukesha County Executive Committee after Nickolaus recused herself from the "recount" the day before it began on April 27, several weeks after the April 5 election, and a full week after Kloppenburg had announced her intention to file a "recount" and to request an independent investigation of Nickolaus. Kloppenburg charges that the G.A.B. was not suited to do the investigation themselves, given their close working relationship with Nickolaus and the other county clerks.

Despite her recusal, the ballots from the county of Waukesha have been in Nickolaus' custody since at least 4pm on the day following the election.

Kloppenburg had initially been in the lead on Election Night by a ridiculously slim 204 vote margin. At a press conference two days later, GOP activist and County Clerk Nickolaus stunned the state by announcing that, due to "human error," some 14,000 votes from the City of Brookfield had been left out of her Election Night totals, reversing the results and giving her former colleague and boss David Prosser a more-than-7,000 vote lead over Kloppenburg in the statewide race. Neither the County's Board of Canvassers nor the G.A.B. had been informed about the "human error" until the evening presser on Thursday, April 7, even though Nickolaus says she discovered it on the Wednesday morning after the election.

It wouldn't be the first time problems and irregularities plagued an election administered by Kathy Nickolaus. She has compiled a long and ignominious history of such "errors" since becoming County Clerk in 2002, after receiving immunity from criminal prosecution in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors during a scandal that sent a number of her and Prosser's colleagues from the Assembly Republican Caucus to jail.

Ballot bags holding those 14,000 votes from the City of Brookfield were among the ones found to feature some of the most disturbing irregularities during the "recount." While examining one of them before counting the ballots inside, Judge Mawdsley said it had "the widest gap we have seen in ANY of the bags so far," according to observer Mary Magnuson who took the extraordinary photos of "wide open" bags and scratched out serial numbers that we published here earlier this month.

The irregular City of Pewaukee poll tapes that With witnessed being tallied last Friday also included an "Official Zero Proof Report" poll tape dated the day prior to the "Official Results Report," on 03/29/11 at 11:01am. The "Zero Proof" is the test tape printed out on the morning of the election before polls open, to "prove" there are no votes already on the machines.

Polls in Wisconsin open at 7am and close at 8pm. Perhaps the date on the machines was off by seven days, for some reason, and the time by 4 hours. Perhaps the 3/29/11 "Zero Proof" at 11:01am was really printed on 4/5/11 at 7:01am as polls opened. If so, the "Official Results Report" dated 3/30/11 at 1:40am would actually have been printed on 4/5/11 at 9:40, a full hour and a half after the polls closed. That still seems curious, and begs the question as to why none of the signed witnesses on the tapes noticed the date/time discrepancies before or after the machine was put into service for the statewide election.

There is a form of "early voting" in WI, in that absentee voters may drop off their ballots at the municipal clerk's office prior to Election Day. Perhaps "maybe 24" of those absentee voters voted on a touch-screen machine at City Hall? But, if so, why would an "Official Results Report" be printed prior to Election Day?

With was troubled enough by the incident to write a short letter for Judge Mawdsley last Monday, which was also given to the Kloppenburg campaign and sent to the G.A.B., following what she witnessed the Friday before. The letter requested the Clerk from the City of Pewaukee "offer testimony into the record" concerning how date adjustments are made on the touch-screen voting machines. Her request was not fulfilled.

The Clerk from the City of Pewaukee, Kelly Tarczewski, has not responded to several requests from The BRAD BLOG, via phone and email, to comment on the irregularities. Neither has Deputy Clerk Ami Hurd. A perfectly reasonable explanation may exist for these irregularities, but as yet we cannot report what that may be.

Melissa Mulliken, Kloppenburg's campaign manager, says that while she hasn't been able to review the specifics of what happened in the minutes (they are not available to the campaigns or the public until after the count is complete), her general understanding was that those tapes were determined to be from pre-election tests, in contrast to the detailed information provided by With to The BRAD BLOG through several different phone conversations and emails.

After the counts in all counties are finally complete, the G.A.B. has three days to canvass and certify the results. Then the Kloppenburg campaign will have just five days to review all of the minutes and all of the results from all 72 counties, to determine if they wish to file a judicial review to contest the election and challenge the extraordinary number of irregularities that have been uncovered to date.

Or Maybe These Poll Tapes? The Ones That No Voter Ever Reviewed?

As if the opened ballot bags, missing and scratched-out serial numbers, and mis-dated poll tapes aren't enough, the minutes from the "recounts" in three different cities in two different counties have revealed that the so-called "Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails" on touch-screen voting machines actually didn't print at all, because the paper rolls were inserted backwards.

Most disturbingly, no one noticed or bothered to complain about it during the election! What does that tell us about the validity of the so-called "paper trails" printed out with touch-screen voting machines in Wisconsin, and the many other states which use the exact same unverifiable voting systems?

We are always told we can "trust" the results of 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting machines because voters review the "paper record" before they hit the "Cast Vote!" button. Unfortunately, as we've been explaining for years, no, they don't --- and here, once again, is more evidence.

The following descriptions are from the published minutes from "recounts" in several counties where they completed their work within the last two weeks.

Notes: Original Memory Cards opened and TSX ballots recreated as paper was in backwards on Election Day. Tabulators accidentally took original Memory Card and used the original Memory Card for testing recount ballots, thereby, resetting that card to pre-election mode.

Total Number of TSX Ballots Counted at Recount: 20

In other words, it wasn't until the "recount" that anyone even noticed the "paper trails" or "paper records" of voter ballots didn't exist at all and therefore were never verified by voters. Officials simply used the touch-screens memory card to print them in order to count them at the "recount." They either accurately reflect the will of the voters who voted on April 5, or they do not. Nobody can ever know.

The same thing happened in two different towns, with different models of touch-screen machines made by a different manufacturer in Taylor County [PDF], where they use the ES&S Model 150 for optically-scanned ballots, and the infamously-failed ES&S iVotronic Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) system for touch-screen voters.

Taylor County, Town of Cleveland, Ward 1:

A copy of ballots printed from the DRE flashcard was used to tally the votes from the DRE as the election inspectors had put the paper in backwards when changed later in the day and all of the ballots would not have been on the Real Time Audit Log printed on Election Day.

DRE totals were Prosser 36, Kloppenburg 19

Taylor County, Town of Pershing, Ward 1:

A copy of ballots printed from the DRE flashcard was used to tally the votes from the DRE as the election inspectors had put the paper in backwards when changed later in the day and all of the ballots would not have been on the Real Time Audit Log printed on Election Day.

The DRE totals were Prosser 16, Kloppenburg 21

The optically-scanned hand-marked paper ballots cast in Taylor were simply run through the same op-scanners again during the "recount," instead of being counted by hand.

When we called the Taylor County Clerk to ask for more information on the DRE "paper records" that didn't print on Election Day, we were only able to leave a message requesting a call back. We never received a return call. The nice woman who answered the phone at the Clerk's office and who had been at the count the day before, however, told us that "interestingly enough," the results of the recounts from the touch-screen systems were the most accurate of them all!

We took some time to explain why, that the "paper records" are simply a printout of what the computer says the votes are, whether that's what they really were or not. So reprinted "recount" results will always match the results printed on the results poll tapes on Election Night. Garbage in, garbage out, 100% unverifiable, faith-based voting. She had no idea.

'The Machines Will Save Us'

What a difference a few years make. Back after the 2004 Presidential Election, bloggers at the left-leaning Daily Kos website were permanently banned and their diaries purged if they dared discuss irregularities or the possibilities of fraud in that election. We've mentioned that depressing point a number of times over the years (most recently last summer during a radio appearance with Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas.)

Happily, things seem to have changed for the better over there --- at least if the great work and reporting from Wisconsin blogger "Giles Goat Boy" throughout the duration of the Supreme Court election "recount" is any indication.

In a detailed diary last weekend titled "The Machines Will Save Us", he observed some of the similar issues concerning the G.A.B.'s reliance on "poll tapes" as their "gold standard" for election results. He also looked at the conflict of interest for the state's G.A.B. in overseeing the election "recount" carried out by the very same clerks with whom they work closely, and to whom they offer training, throughout the year:

"Any fraud or incompetence the GAB might uncover among municipal and county clerks is an indictment of the GAB's ability to train and oversee those same clerks," he wrote. "The GAB has a huge incentive to avoid discovery of wrongdoing."

After 18 days of meticulously blogging each day's most noteworthy "recount" news, he lashed out at the G.A.B.'s continuing assertions that if everything matches up with the computer poll tapes, there is no cause for concern: "It's become a dog-and-pony show in many ways. 'Watch as we magically conjure up the same numbers we reported on April 5th with our infallible voting machines!'"

The pseudonymous Daily Kos blogger also links to the same recent G.A.B. article we linked above, highlighting this particular assertion from the state's chief election agency:

A hole in a ballot bag or a missing security tag is not enough evidence alone to discard the ballots inside. The ability to put a hand into a ballot bag is not by itself evidence of fraud.

True. Just because one can put his or her hand into a ballot bag and add or remove ballots, doesn't necessarily prove that someone committed fraud, any more than poll tapes said to be from Election Night, printed by computer systems prone to malfunction and malfeasance, prove that they did not.

As ballots in Wisconsin were not counted on Election Night, at the polls, by human beings, in front of the public, all parties, and video cameras, with results posted directly at each ward before ballots were moved anywhere --- as per "Democracy's Gold Standard" --- and because the chain of custody has been irretrievably violated in the case of thousands of ballots, we are left with nothing but guesswork as to the authenticity of the ballots and the true results of the election.

All we now know is that, in fact, criminals --- particularly those insiders with direct and largely unfettered access to both the tabulating machines and the ballots, people like Kathy Nickolaus --- easily could have committed election fraud, as the supposedly secure, supposedly documented chain of custody, which is supposed to keep that from happening, has now been completely lost for thousands of ballots in a race said to have been decided by just a few thousand votes out of some 1.5 million cast --- a reported 0.488% margin between the two candidates.

Despite those chain of custody violations, and despite the inability to actually confirm that all of the ballots counted during the "recount" were the ones actually cast, and despite the Kloppenburg campaign's objections to them, as noted for the record in the minutes when many of the irregularities were discovered, the ballots are being counted and included in the "recount" results as per WI law, at the approval and discretion of the Boards of Canvassers in Waukesha County and elsewhere.

But proving fraud is not the test for a post-recount appeal or overturning an election in the Badger State. The legal question concerns irregularities, according to Wisconsin statutes and case law.

While the statutes are very specific on which absentee ballots are to be removed from the count due to defects such as a missing witness signature (and, in fact, during the course of the "recount," defective absentee ballots were removed from the count for that reason), they do not speak to which defects and irregularities should disqualify non-absentee ballots from being included in the count.

A review of the applicable statutes, however, makes it fairly clear that the question is not one of proving fraud, but rather, as explained in the footnotes to the Recount statutes (9.01):

Generally, to successfully challenge an election, the challenger must show the probability of an altered outcome in the absence of the challenged irregularity.

"Irregularities," according to the statutes, are to be documented throughout the recount procedure, and we have reported on far too many of them over the past several weeks here.

The statutes explain that as the "recount" of ballots begins, "The board of canvassers shall then examine the container or bag containing the ballots to be certain it has not been tampered with, opened, or opened and resealed. Any irregularities or possible tampering with the container or bag shall be noted." [9.01(1)(b)3.]

As the count continues, "The board of canvassers or the chairperson or chairperson's designee shall make specific findings of fact with respect to any irregularity...discovered during the recount." [9.01(5)(a)]

Should the candidate choose to appeal at the end of the "recount," "The appeal shall be heard by a judge without a jury. ... Within the time ordered by the court, the appellant shall file a complaint enumerating with specificity every alleged irregularity, defect, mistake or fraud committed during the recount." [9.01(7)(b)]

That section of the code "constitutes the exclusive judicial remedy for testing the right to hold an elective office as the result of an alleged irregularity, defect or mistake committed during the voting or canvassing process." [9.01(11)]

And, as noted above, but worth repeating, "Generally, to successfully challenge an election, the challenger must show the probability of an altered outcome in the absence of the challenged irregularity."

That's just about it, according to the written statutes anyway.

In other words, as we read the applicable laws, the election could be overturned by the court if the Kloppenburg camp is able (and willing) to show that enough votes for David Prosser were "irregular" due to gross violations of chain of custody, where nobody can swear to the authentic provenance of ballots being included in the count.

At this hour, with approximately 21,500 votes still being canvassed from the Waukesha "recount," there are 7,008 votes now said to be dividing the two candidates. If an appeal were held today, the Kloppenburg campaign would need to show that just 3,504 votes for Prosser, out of the 1.5 million cast in the election, are "irregular" or "defective" enough in some fashion that, if they were excluded from the results, there is a good "probability of an altered outcome" in the election.

Kloppenburg's campaign manager Mulliken insists they have made no determination about whether they will request a judicial review after the count is finally complete, but, she told us, "We are doing our best to do a complete and thorough job to object to these bags as they are counted, and reviewing that record will be our job in determining what we do after the election."

"We have to look at the record and see if it contains information and evidence that forms the basis for a claim. We don't know what we're going to do because the record's not complete," she said late this week during a phone conversation. "When the recount is over, we have five business days to decide if we're going to ask for judicial review. We're going to look at the facts and decide from there."

After nearly a week of repeated attempts at finding out how and if the G.A.B. would confirm the ballots being counted were the same as those cast and, if so, how, spokesperson Reid Magney finally responded directly to the query, again, placing most of his faith in the machines.

"There are numerous security checks throughout the process to ensure the ballots being recounted are the same ones cast on Election Day," he wrote in an email. "There is a public test of the system before Election Day. Each ballot is initialed by two poll workers. There is a print-out made after the polls close. The hand-recount totals have been extremely close to the machine print-outs which, along with all the other protections in place, confirms that they are the same ballots."

Confirmed. Really?

As expected, the Prosser campaign, as they are still on the winning side of the reported results, have few concerns, and generally concur with Magney's assessment, even though they wouldn't confirm that they knew the ballots being counted were actually the ones cast. Spokesperson Brian Nemoir told us, "We are pretty confident in the results reported the night of the election and all three canvasses and now recount."

We suspect he'd be offering a different assessment if the numbers were reversed. Unlike Democrats (which Kloppenburg is not, she's independent) Republicans fight aggressively at any indication of fraud when they believe it might overturn a close election they appear to be losing. Unfortunately, they also have a tendency to invent such indications when needed.

Nonetheless, despite all that we have learned, Nemoir sees no problems. "I don't think the underlying story is that there are anomalies or concerns," he told us. "I think the underlying story is that this recount should provide great confidence. I think you've got a line of strong proof that should not invoke questions but should invoke confidence."

And if these new photos of duct taped ballot bags from the Village of Menomonee Falls in, you guessed it, Waukesha County (as taken by an observer who has asked not to be identified), doesn't "invoke confidence," we don't know what will...

* * *

Our thanks to Jeannie Dean for her invaluable help and research on this story, as well as the members of the Facebook Election Integrity group who have contributed insight, eye-witness accounts, and photographs from the ground, and various reports and analyses that have been integral to our WI Supreme Court recount coverage over the last several weeks.

I was amused when I went to post this at Digg. They provide a number of categories under which an article may be posted. You have to choose one. I wasn't quite sure whether I should post this one under "politics" or "gaming."

the gab claims its safe guards the chain of custody but when almost every safe guard is broken it says it does not matter cause look the machine spit out same result

i am disappointed you did not touch on the gab going to the attorney general to deny open record requests..every time i hear or read that the gab has "ownership" of the requested paperwork(as i did again yesterday)a chill goes down my spine

and 6 weeks after the election the gab has not told the voters of wisconsin the first most important number needed in an audit..how many people voted

wisconsin law calls for election results to be accurate(or allows judicial intervention if a more accurate result will be acheived)

We are told that because Wisconsin has paper ballots, we have a verifiable election system, because we can always go back and count the paper to check the computer output. It's bad enough that they make it very difficult legally or politically to have a recount, but if the recount mindset is to verify the original election outcome, not create an outcome independent of the original, then our elections are not verifiable. They are a sham where the gate keepers are only trying the best they can to prove what was originally reported (true or not).

Exit polling simply adds weight to the argument that the numbers had been deliberately skewed, Mary K. They don't change the results.

The only way to ensure that the candidate who wins is identical to the candidate who received the most votes is to apply Democracy's Gold Standard--hand-marked paper ballots, publicly hand-counted at the precinct level before the press and all concerned citizens. The towns in New Hampshire that conduct this form of transparent elections complete their hand-counts faster than their machine-counting counterparts.

Then again, the machines must be a whole lot smarter than we mere mortal human beings. They're capable of counting all the votes one week before the votes are cast!

"WI knows what it needs to do - vote 'em all out at the first opportunity. Then, get rid of the machines.

Um...but WI has to vote on those machines to determine who gets into office that WILL get rid of the machines.

... a Catch 22 that Joseph Heller would have a field day with.

Brad. Thank you. I'm *so* relieved to see it all, so meticulously detailed and documented for the whole world to see. And this time, Brad-fly, BEFORE THE RECOUNT IS EVEN OVER! Remarkable turn-around time considering the complexity of these EGREGIOUS "irregularities" we're getting from all over the wards in WI that had so many "problems". (Can't believe how much stuff is in here that I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT! HOLY WhhAAA!)

This piece is beeauuuuutifully framed, Brad. I don't know how you managed to pull that off. It's long, I know...but it's still too short.
(*maybe more later on the foia stonewalls from the GAB, as Karen suggests? Cuz she's right...that's been GOB-SMACKING. And I mean every single one of those caps.)

Great job, Brad. SO relieved, so grateful. Whew. Now I can go down for a nappy! Maybe even a swift shot of vodky before hand.

And you might suggest she have Brad Friedman on her show to discuss this further, break it wide BEFORE the critical-to-us-all upcoming WI RECALL ELECTIONS - all taking place on one damn day - JULY 13th. (12th?)

...I would be very surprised if she's allowed to cover it. I share the skepticism of most of us here on that. But if she even looks at ONE PIC of these ballot bags (hallo? DUCT TAPE?!) - I don't think she'll be able to look away. It might inform her coverage in ways we can't predict...
thanks, my Brad-peeps!

Jeannie Dean, you captured my thoughts exactly on the "vote them out, then change the machines" logical fallacy. As far as Rachel Maddow covering this, I think it is possible. Olbermann was the only television news broadcast to cover the irregularities in Ohio in 2004.

I hope Rachel will cover this but I'm skeptical. In a piece the other night about how successful politicians go out there and pound the flesh shaking everybody's hand(leading up to a report on Gingrich's difficulties the first day he tried this)she cited Bush's successful campaign of 2004. As I usually do when anyone on TV makes a direct or indirect reference to George Bush winning any presidential election, I objected out loud to the TV that Bush did not win that election. I don't think Rachel heard me. It's confounding that she acts like she doesn't know much about this(election integrity issues) or that it doesn't matter. I don't get it.

My sweet, sweet wonderful David Lasagna ~! (how you've been on my mind and HOW I WISH YOU WOULD FACEBOOK!) - and to ALL my favorite, but crusty, EI Brad-blog tribe - behold the RACHEL MADDOW show from April 8th:

RE: "smelling a pattern in these mysterious, last minute Republican victories..."

GREAT BACKGROUND report re: Kathy Nicolaus' criminal history / "found" 7500 votes / and all kinds of juicy details reported IN DEPTH, BY RACHEL, you guys. FWIW, this recount is *really* different. I know we're all heart-broken...

But do get over there, please, no matter how skeptical.

We have a real shot with this one, you guys.
It's the kind of bad recount that comes along once in a ... well, never.
It comes along once in a never.
It's the UNICORN of bad recounts, my peeps.
And the stakes have never been higher...for us *all*. Please help us support WISCONSIN.
It's most urgent.

Gotta run now to a glam hollywood party that I don't give a flying, crapping rat about. PLSE TELL RACHEL.

(might have the info on these backwards...but this one covers Kathy Nicholaus' BIZARRO world PRESSER, where she was just so strange I'd LOVE to hear a body language expert weigh in....do we know any? Cuz her VOICE is wavering...) You guys, she already gets it! Now let's see if MSNBC will AIR what Brad had reported.

At this hour, with approximately 21,500 votes still being canvassed from the Waukesha "recount", there are 7,008 votes now said to be dividing the two candidates. If an appeal were held today, the Kloppenburg campaign would need to show that just 3,504 votes for Prosser, out of the 1.5 million cast in the election, are "irregular" or "defective" enough in some fashion that, if they were excluded from the results, there is a good "probability of an altered outcome" in the election.

There are approximately 3,600 "reporting units" in the state. Which means that less than one flipped vote per reporting unit would be enough to change the outcome of the election.

G.A.B. staff has created an internal review process to check each ward’s recount totals against the original canvass totals to look for variances of plus or minus 10 votes. Any ward in which 10 more or 10 fewer votes are reported is flagged by staff for follow-up with the county clerk for an explanation of the reason. So far, we have found no significant, unexplained variances of vote totals. Staff will continue to review Waukesha County’s results as they come in each day until the recount is complete.

So a ward can have a variance of nine votes without being flagged, there is often more than one ward in a reporting unit, and, I repeat, only one vote per reporting unit flipped from Kloppenburg to Prosser would be enough to reverse the results of the election.

But, of course, that's not important enough for the G.A.B. to determine even deserves "an explanation."

If you are so interested in “enforcing the election, ethics, lobbying and campaign finance laws vigorously to reduce the opportunity for corruption and maintain public confidence in representative government”, then why did Kathy Nickolaus have unfettered access to the vote bags, machines, and software during the course of the Waukesha recount?

She admitted in a phone conversation on Thursday May 19 that, not only did she have all the votes stored in her vault, but also made a special area in her office for them.

The voters in Wisconsin will accept this because it just makes people too uncomfortable to face the fact they no longer have any control over their government. They would rather focus on the recall elections but for the life of me I have no idea why they think the results of those will be any different. This is not even artful stealing of an election. I am starting to think even if Prosser and Nickolaus were caught on video stuffing ballot bags on election night it would be explained away as getting an early start on the recount.

um, i realize i'm an old fogey, but facebook is evil...
the *IDEA* of facebook is great, but they are compromised, and so are you if you are on it...
i know there is at least one open software solution that is addressing that (diaspora), but it will depend on a critical mass of people using it before facebook is relegated to sheeple who don't know better...
again, i realize it is an excellent organizing tool for activists, but it is also a one-stop intelligence gathering windfall for the feebs, etc...
just sayin'...
art guerrilla
aka ann archyartguerrilla@windstream.net
eof

that the GAB allows those fed ex mail type plastic bags as "secure" ballot boxes is ridiculous...the duct tape bag is one of two things, both horrible...either bag was accidentally ripped open when being handled with no one signing witness to the event or it was sliced open and votes rigged and then taped back together....ballots should be in secure sealed containers that can not be opened accidentally and can not be opened without ruining tamper proof seal...anything less than that is height of incompetence and I would contend planned to allow rigging

Looks like it is up to Kloppenburg now as to whether to challenge the recount and the open ballot bags, now might be the time to let her know the considered opinion of people who have been watching this:

"Petryk, Malszycki's boss, is one of several co-sponsors of the controversial voter ID bill that passed the Senate Thursday.

In a post on Facebook the day of the 2010 general election, Malszycki said she had voted for GOP candidates Scott Walker, Ron Johnson, Dan Kapanke, Mike Huebsch and J.B. Van Hollen and planned to return to her South Side neighborhood the next day."

violations of chain of custody are of little concern [to the GAB]. So long as the newly tabulated results largely match the results printed on the poll tapes by the computer tabulators at the end of Election Night on April 5th, that is, essentially, close enough for government work.

That's just great, GAB! So, what guarantees do we have that the individuals responsible for wide-open, re-taped and remarked ballot bags did not (a) manipulate the memory cards, as academic study after academic study and Hacking Democracy demonstrate can be done by a malicious insider with minimal access to the system, and then (b) stuffed the ballots to match the manipulated opt-scan results?

None, of course.

While we can't say for certain that insiders manipulated the results, what we can say is that the massive chain-of-custody violations are precisely the type of cover-up any reasonable person would expect to see if unlawful insider manipulation of the e-voting systems had taken place.

In the face of such massive irregularity, the suggestion that those who did not have insider access prove that fraud was committed behind closed doors is patently absurd, though it does suggest just how far down the rabbit hole our electoral system has traveled.

all of these irregularities need to be exposed in the media - there is no way anyone in their right mind could rule out deliberate tampering of this election with all of these anomalies, therefore the election itself has ABSOLUTELY NO INTEGRITY - should be challenged in court, and a re-vote should happen and hand-counted if need be to protect the VALIDITY OF DEMOCRACY ITSELF!
I still do not understand how Prosser can claim a win and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel can report this - with all of these oddities as mentioned in the Brad Blog. So is the Earth flat and not a sphere just because it appears that way, and some people may want to believe that, even though our research into science and mathematics tell us otherwise, come on!!!

"I still do not understand how Prosser can claim a win and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel can report this."

Esp. with the job that he was supposedly voted into. Deciding cases lower courts could or didn't handle properly. Irony is so ironical.

Would be interested in knowing how closely this recount is being followed in Wisconsin. All the effort that went into the protests seems to have dropped off the radar screen of the progressive websites and Democracy Now.Quite suddenly and inexplicably , or not.

UNBELIEVABLE BRAD! i'm hopeful that this gets the exposure we all know it needs and desperately deserves. thanks for serving the cause --- it feels like such a dark hour in wisconsin --- but i'm hoping your article makes the rounds and people begin to wake up. and hopefully the powers that be will be exposed afterall. we have QUITE a case....thank you for pulling it ALL together. i'm amazed at how accurate and complete this is. thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If Democrats were concerned at all about the integrity of the electoral system, then your objections might have more merit, but as it stands it is easier to vote than buy Sudafed, thanks to Democratic policies. Go figure. Within the admittedly loose standards, it appears the 'Pubs have won. Let it rest. "THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE"

"Worse, if the results printed on the poll tapes are the ultimate proof of the accuracy of results, what happens when --- as discovered among poll tapes from the City of Pewaukee in Waukesha County late last week --- the "recount" uncovers "Official Results Report" poll tapes dated a full seven days before the actual election was held?"

This Wisconsin episode seems to be a public nightmare more than it seems to be an adult election.

Er...Kloppenburg is an *INDEPENDENT* candidate, so nice try with the false LEFT paradigm, but it doesn't work for this race. Guessing you weren't told that as part of your "disinfo trolling" training. Should be in the handbook. Might wanna E-MEMO your bosses (and cc you're co-workers, while you're at it.)

Thanks for the love! As for the Rachel shows you link, I know about them, I saw them. They were great as far as they went but what I mean by her not covering election integrity issues is that she doesn't really connect the dots the way our young master Bradford does time and time again. She doesn't lay out the fundamental flaws of the machines, the oh so many ways they can be fucked with, the oh so many instances that would seem to indicate that they HAVE been fucked with(or not worked for one reason or another), chain of custody problems, etc. You know, the basic nature of the problem of our(lack of) election integrity. She doesn't explain how thoroughly unreliable, undemocratic, and faith based ALL of our elections currently are. And so of course failing to do all that, she doesn't HARP on the topic as she does with so many other issues that she cares about. The enormity of the problem is thus missed. The ongoing nature of the problem is thus missed. The fact that as a result of how completely compromised our elections are we are living in a banana republic is missed. And that these largely unmentioned problems make it well nigh impossible to effect the change she would like to see and works so hard to bring about on all the other issues she covers so brilliantly is missed.

"She [Maddow] doesn't explain how thoroughly unreliable, undemocratic, and faith based ALL of our elections currently are" ...

That is a key.

It would be so good if we could convince people of that.

People are angry at each other because the voting public thinks "the other guy" votes stupidly.

We activists think, instead, that conclusion is based on an unknown, because we are unwilling to swallow the conflicting, murky results with a strong dose of blind faith.

We want to KNOW because we want to base our understanding on knowledge instead of the election faith.

The way Brad lays this one out should shake the faith of some, and we should be here to help them by letting them know we have been there in the early pain and we are still standing.

Still standing and demanding that government get back to the golden basics of paper ballots properly counted in strictly protected public events where the evidence (ballots) are handled like our nation depended on it (it does).

Ernie is correct that there is only one truth (a number) for each election, and that truth is the faithless, knowledge based true arithmetic ... the true tally.

But floating above all that is this dark cloud of a notion that faith in election priests leads to the truth.

But to the contrary we plainly see that the faith leads to the republican truth, the democratic truth, the independent truth, and all the banter about "my truth is better than your truth".

Like you said "The fact that as a result of how completely compromised our elections are we are living in a banana republic is missed."

B. Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK. He acted in concert with one or more individuals.

C. Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill JFK. One or more other individuals did.

Acquisition of sufficient facts to determine whether (A), (B) or (C) is true results in knowledge.

Knowledge = Discovered Truth.

The fact that different individuals, without sufficient facts, believe either (A), (B) or (C) to be true does not alter the fact that only one of those three possibilities can be true.

Truth, as an objective reality, is a constant. The fact that inadequately informed individuals hold different theories as to what is true does not mean that each individual "possesses" a different truth. It simply means they are not in possession of sufficient evidence to know the truth.

The partial truth in shows like Rachel's is the reason that I stopped looking at the news programs on TV..eventually stopped looking at all of it. TV got awfully boring.Truth is so much more interesting.

DRE voting machines with a paper trail are used in my area. The first time I voted using the DRE, I was told not to worry about that print out on the side; that it was just in-case they needed to do a recount and that they could always print another one. I had spent hundreds of hours and dollars trying to keep DRE voting machines out of my state so I knew this poll worker had been fed the local board of elections propaganda.

I know the numbers are small but it would be interesting if there was a way to find any of the voters that voted using the machines that produced blank paper trails and see what they have to say. Any trained poll worker would have known something was wrong that needed to be fixed before the machine was used for voting. Also, I thought that the machines were to have something in place to prevent the paper from being put in backwards. All voters that had to use the machine should have been informed about the paper trail and to notify a poll worker if there was nothing printing.

Again, I know the numbers here are small but because states have laws saying that if there is no paper print trail the machine can just print one, I am concerned. Look what happened in the SC senate race which I think was a clear case of seeing exactly how much election fraud could take place and and be upheld.
*OT*
I am also concerned that the use of internet voting is slowly and steadily advancing.http://thevotingnews.com...on-takoma-park-md-patch/
It would be helpful if all voters refused to vote via the internet. I think they would refuse if they knew how easily their vote could be manipulated.
Peace,
Sark

The biggest red flag of all that Rachel Maddow is not on board with reality vis a vis our current state of no election integrity occurred last week. In the course of some report, as one piece of evidence to support the point she was making, she mentioned that Alvin Greene had won in South Carolina. As if that actually happened as reported. With no hanky panky. My heart sank.

We all have our blind spots. For one of hers to be our faith-based election systems is very weird.

I used to write her and Olbermann comments and appeals to look at election integrity issues, Sibel Edmonds, etc. Never heard anything back. Never knew if anything was getting through in the slightest. Tried twice to join her comment club but I'm so awkward and unskilled with computers and it seemed like they wanted you to jump through a infinite series of hoops, I said, fuck it.

Maybe I should go back and try to get on their comment blog site or whatever. Maybe a lot of us should. And politely, insistantly, relentlessly bring up our election issues until it gets up the chain to Rachel.

This is totally unacceptable in a democracy. The Democratic Party bears some of the blame for their consistent refusal to investigate the numerous credible reports of Republican vote-counting fraud over the last decade.

The election must be done over, with paper trails, observers, and exit polls.

"Maybe I should go back and try to get on their comment blog site or whatever. Maybe a lot of us should. And politely, insistantly, relentlessly bring up our election issues until it gets up the chain to Rachel."

Maybe we all should. It has worked in places like Egypt,Tunisia and now Spain. The people are fed up.

I think that there is a lot of effort to keep election fraud out of the news and on progressive web sites by those who steal the votes.. Noticed that Amy Goodman covered the demonstrations well in Wisconsin, then went to foreign news. This SC election in Wisconsin is just as important as the demonstrations.

Please believe me when I tell you that we have compiled more inculpatory evidence of criminal malfeasance / ballot tampering / election fraud by a group of co-conspirators along with their "so called" independent Genaral Accounting Board than we've ever had on record.

And I am keeping meticulous records. You can see a full cached collection of evidence received / photographed by WI RECOUNT volunteers, documented here (Ballot / poll tape / FOIA /irregularities and handwriting samples)...

You guys, the impossible math is lining up PRECISELY with where the ground reports are coming in re: bad ballot bags, mismatched serial numbers, missing seal numbers from inspectors' reports, anomalous poll tape time stamps, more votes than voters...it's an unprecedented ground up CITIZEN INVESTIGATION we're conducting, and we *should* have more than enough to give Klopp some real steam should she choose to contest...

Remember, Klopp only needs to prove that 3504 ballots are "irregular" enough for evidentiary consideration that they may have changed the outcome of this election. Well, if ever there was enough evidence of that, we have it.

It's already over. They forced the fit in time for certification, but there will be far too much evidence of a (potential) crime, and MORE than enough evidence to throw the results of this election....and it's RECOUNT, into question.

Wrong again, Dredd. I never discussed some all encompassing "Truth." I'll leave that to the mystics.

I am speaking about ascertainable truth. The kind of truth that can be verified, scientifically.

For example, it is a likely truth that one of these two Supreme Court candidates actually received more votes than the other --- the likelihood of a flat out tie being remote.

The problem is not the reality of that truth but an opaque voting system that is not geared for universal ascertainment of that truth.

We know that e-voting systems can be gamed by insiders. We have a number of facts that "suggest" that the system was gamed, especially given the massive post-election irregularities that the insiders would prefer not be examined.

The fact is that, outside of those who may have committed election fraud, there is no way for most of us to ascertain "the truth" --- that either Kloppenburg or Prosser actually received the most votes.

That doesn't alter the fact that there is "a truth" --- that one of the two candidates actually received the most votes. It just means that this particular truth may never be verified.

(Under Democracy's Gold Standard --- hand-marked paper ballots, publicly hand-counted before the media, candidates and voters on election night, that truth would have been easily ascertained and no "recount" would have been necessary.)

Truth is a constant. Ascertainment of the truth is the variable. Ya dig?

In New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 (1932), the great Justice Brandeis said that the states are experiments, free to find their own truth that would be different than the truth of the other states.

The federal government would mediate, in a sense, and have the greater truth that those 50 experiments ("states") could not violate.

There is truth and there is truth. I am fine with yours. I am fine with mine.

So if you are a judge and you go elected with tainted votes how could you possibly rule on tainted evidence?

Imagine a scenario where the defense has proven beyond a shadow of doubt that the chain of custody has been violated. Now imagine that same attorney asking judge Prosser to recues himself for because he had an ESTABLISHED disregard for the in viability of the entire concept!

If Wisconsin voters have to put up with him for 10 more years man oh man would I love to see this case come before his court and watch him squirm and try to get out of that one!

Adding: *AND*, fyi, as if catching up to them via Richard Charnin' (TIA) and KarenfromIllinois' sacred math isn't enough! For the first time we're seeing statistical verification of the bad "official results" and how that reporting lines up with the chain of custody breaches in the wards of interest. You guys we're onto 'em in real time!

And as if you need more juicy news to whet your whistle for the WI WONK...check out our trolls!

Ask yourself, why so screetchy? (And even more dumb than normal)...have their forced narrative / regular BOGUS defensive talking points been THROWN OFF by just how badly this recount has gone?

And, more importantly, can we outnumber them on the new media feeds / social networking sites just this one time? 3 trolls in this thread...
many more of us.

RELATED: Watch how the PROSSER-heads / vendors normal lines are changing...used to always be: "There is no evidence (that the machines failed, that votes were mistallied) publically villainizing any challenger who has rightfully requested a recount in a super-squirly election with questionable results...

Well, they're changing up their lines.
And not everyone seems to be getting the memo.
Our trolls here, proof!

(Dredd, SOoooOO funny that they ACUTALLY HAVE A MANUAL! I was kidding about that. LOL!!)

We've also been hitting up my Comedy Clown Satire Activst GODS Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. As Dorothy Fadiman's amazing doc "STEALING AMERICA: VOTE BY VOTE" points out, they have been the source of the best, and most accurate, info on election fraud to date.

Why is is so hard to contact Rachel or Colbert? Are they even real people? They are not my friends, I don't even know them. If they can't talk like a normal person then what's the point? My opinion is their for profit shows are more important than reality on the ground. Why just in 2011 should they help? Have they helped in 2010? 2009? 2008? I am sorry, but I don't see it. I haven't seen justice in our elections for a decade, and I've actually seen deception where I looking beyond a decade. So go ahead play the big media game but remember, it's a lost battle when you play within the masters game using master's rules. The only thing left is to shake up their entire game. That means facing down the BS wherever it resides. They have us running in ignorance and fear, but they ultimately fear being faced down. I won't say go get a facebook account, because I know the truth about facebook.

Trouble for me with the part where your message has truth in it is that it's so hard to make out because of the rest of your attitude which seems mostly comprised of gloom, doom, and dismissiveness for ideas not close enough to your own.

It seems to me that there have been plenty of instances when revolutions DID occur in places where tyranny was the rule of thumb. It also seems to me that there is no single universal recipe for what is successful in bringing about such change.

I think we're pretty aware here of how fucked up things are and the odds against us, so preaching to us about that just comes across as a bit of a nag, which doesn't help.

For me, the smart play is to try to fight back on ALL fronts. To go at the tapestry of dysfunction at any place that we're personally moved to. There's plenty of room and work for everyone.

If you don't think Colbert, Stewart, and Maddow have been helping raise consciousness around here that's your business. But on that particular aspect of what's been discussed here, you're living in a different reality than I.

Oh they have raised conscious, but they re-phrase everything in dumb ed down speak. They can't fire off real questions which go directly to the heart, cause they will be unemployed. I can write Brad, and he'll respond. I can't write them. They blacklist just like CAFR. It's a game, the networks own it, but the establishment makes the rules. Such rules mean employment or the street for the players. A game You can't win. Maybe it will take another decade for this truth to come through to you. Meanwhile, It's already reality for me. There is something to what you say on fighting on all fronts, just don't play "their game" So, break their game, it's long overdue, and no longer sustainable. How is it I can write to a band and get a reply, but when it comes to the media, abc, cbs, fox, pbs, nbc or to my senators the reply is fake BS? They are NOT my friends. I don't know them, nor do I agree with their half measures, or half ass bs.

The big picture is reality.

That big picture for me is the destruction of everything I swore an oath to protect.

Did I waste my time serving this country? Or am I serving it right this second?

Read you here a lot, have for years. Thank you *so* much for your service to our country...as I know how bright you are, I can only imagine how what you know now distorts the good, decent, patriotic reasons you served.

You write: "Sure facebook and twitter (might as well start adding them all in) was great for Tunisia, even Egypt, but America isn't Egypt nor Tunisia."

No, it's not. But WISCONSIN might be.
As a student of the TWITTER REVOLUTION in Iran after their stolen election in 2009, and an obsessive witness in Tunisia, Egypt, and now Wisconsin - there's more cross-over there than you might realize.

(In fact, remember when the people of Egypt bought PIZZA for the protestors occupying the WI capital? Those connections are still in place.)

You wouldn't BELIEVE what's happening in Wisconsin; they are daily under SEIGE (voter ID just passed last week, making it that much harder for students / the elderly and the poor to vote in the upcoming, critical recall elections) in addition to everything else that's being rammed through under what is likely an unelected body of representation. Just because it's not on our news feed right now, WI has NOT stopped fighting.

Right now they're fighting ALONE.

When those revolutions you speak of were in process, being swept in on a wave of new media and citizen journalism; the TWEETS ahead of the news, the news confirming what I watched uploaded by "new friends" on the ground there in real time...! I posted here at Bradblog - thrilled with the implications of what was happening, how these tools could be used to help us in OUR next stolen election.

Everyone here shit all over it.

Told me TWEETING for for 'TARDS...that I was operating on an INSECURE SITE; that I was wasting my time...and even to "GET OVER IT, AHMADINIJAD WON!" (Former moderator here) I couldn't believe it.

And so, not surprisingly, everyone here missed one of the biggest stories of the year...missed an opportunity to fight alongside the Iranian people, comporting themselves with such grace under fire (literally) after experiencing OUR cause de vivre; a people under siege who were only asking us for ONE THING: to bear witness.

And everyone here blew the (and me) off. I was so pissed at this group about that, my Bradblogians, my tribe for not caring - I didn't comment here for months...

It was an incredibly cynical reaction to a beautiful uprising, and this community, who KNOWS STOLEN ELECTIONS and obsessively reads up on them...did NOTHING. And outside of you - very few readers here EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENED in IRAN.

(So glad you do, btw. Encouraged to read that in light of your above comments...)

Look, I hate FACEBOOK. I KNOW what the limitations are, BELIEVE ME, TRA LA. We've already had some really creepy..er...glitches.

That's not the point. We have a BRIEF WINDOW (very brief) to use the technology to our advantage before it's TOTALLY unavailable. It's the best tool we have to organize / mobilize huge ground to top networking in real time that ALLOWS us a way around the maddening media...

...and for now, at least, it can have real impact.

The model for social networking you describe above is EXACTLY the model we are using FB for FOR THE TIME BEING.

...and I don't care if they SPY ON ME. I'm already on every list there is. (Had K9 units assigned to my ELECTION INVESTIGATION in NH, trying to keep me from filming their ballot stuffing operation) so you'll forgive me if I'm beyond caring about "insecure" social networking sites.

I, for one, am tired of fighting from a cage.

So I don't give a flying crapping rat if they can see us figuring them out and try intimidate us. Only means we're close, and they're scared. Too many of us catchin' on.

But fighting them we are in, WI - and my report here was to let you all know that we're succeeding!

I know we are all angry, cynical and helpless, use to arranging our firing squad in a circle...MISSING OUT ENTIRELY ON WHAT WE CAN COLLECTIVELY AFFECT. It's like pulling teeth around here to get this group to even DIGG BRAD! EVEN IN LIGHT OF ALL WE KNOW ABOUT HOW HE HIS BEING "BURIED" by right wing troll groups at DIGG and other circulating sites...

You guys KILL me on that. I love you, but when I see 80 comments and NO DIGGS, I get pissed.
It's SO easy to do. It takes two seconds.
AND, not fer nothin', IT'S YOUR INTERNET VOTE!
...completely missed by the people here who are so dedicated to voting.

It would be NICE, but I'm not holding my breath, if FOR JUST ONCE, this community would ACTION something OTHER than witty comments / sad banter / intellectual arguments about TRUTH, and the general co-miserating we've come to need around here for commune on an issue that has broken all our hearts.

How often do I ask anyone here for anything, Tra la? Really. This is my second request since June of 2009. Your counter-productive response was exactly the opposite of what is needed, exactly the line I got from this group upon my last desperate plea.

I get why. I do. Tired of banging on the door of this whole community to act when and where they can.

What OF the problems?
Gulf Of Mexico (Put public in charge, let them roll out new technology)
Fukushima (fuck Um, rip out all the crap around the first three buildings and bury the fucking shit somewhere?)
Russia (they're mad like bees right now)
China (I think China has America in it's interests)
NK v SK (fucking stupid standoff retardation from hell about to bite us all in the ass)
EU (Want's money to bail out more bs)
others (a fucking myriad of problems)

Not Gays, Guns, Taxes, Pension cuts, and Horrid Insanity. L@@k 4 CAFR. You want me to put science up, I don't do science, I do electronics but you wont search CAFR. All I hear on TV is bla bla bla the mall was closed, burned, destroyed. The storm was bad, the athlete was indicted for steroids, the pot guy with four oz got life. While a fukaShima Dirty bomb reins down on us all.

IN Fairness, this thread was catching some dates. and other problems. At the beginning by Brad.

3/30/2011
vs
2011/0405

if I had to judge
too bad they ain't in the same format
both dates but put together with different ideas
which is legal date? Two times. Or fake two times. See this is why this can't continue. Exactly wht I am sayin.

"...Facebook’s managers are deploying a new software upgrade that will dismantle myriad groups of like-minded political activists unless they get a special software-key from the company.

"...The new software-upgrade will automatically archive all groups. Once archived, each group’s past activity will be still be visible on Facebook, but the groups’ administrators will lose access to their lists of group members. That means the administrators lose contact with everyone in their groups, and will be forced to recruit all those members again – unless Facebook provides them with the special upgrade software..."

"...Facebook managers are providing very limited information about which groups are being favored with the new key, prompting some activists to complain about possible political favoritism among Facebook managers, and many other activists to experiment with techniques and tricks to get the needed upgrade-key.

So what does this mean? Means I have to find a way to back up my entire GROUP WALL / archive it asap. It's now a living historic record of a stolen election, being TRACKED, by citizen activists and ground volunteers.

You guys...I don't know if I can stress how urgently I need your help.

**THAT FB PAGE HAS LIVEBLOGS FROM THE WAUKESHA LIVEFEED! A RECORD THAT HAS REVEALED ALL KINDS OF INCRIMINATING, INCULPATORY EVIDENCE OF WHAT APPEARS TO BE A BALLOT TAMPERING / ELECTION RIGGING OPERATION> THE MINUTES WE LIVEBLOGGED, CLUMSILY, HAVE TAKEN FOREVER TO HIT THE GAB WEBSITE / MINUTES THEY'VE TRIED TO CHARGE JKLOPP FOR!! We DON NOT HAVE TRANSCRIPTS; WE ONLY HAVE SPOTTY RECORDINGS AND EYE WITNESS ACCOUNTS!***

THAT FB PAGE has an EMBEDDED LIVE BLOG THERE FROM (almost) EVERY DAY FROM THE WAUKESHA RECOUNT LIVEFEED. I listened everyday, aghast, and typed what I couldn't believe I was hearing. Now, thanks to eyewitness accounts and networking to the clerks and observers on the ground in the WI RECOUNT NIGHTMARE...I've confirmed most of it.

And I know I heard *right*.

Doubt the minutes (or transcripts) will reveal much, because THAT IS WHERE KLOPPS MISSING VOTES ARE.

Please, please, please...if anyone has extra time today, we need help archiving that wall. It's a lot of info, and Dael and I can't do it by ourselves.

Even if you can get over there, take some screen shots of the docs we have / download the permanent cache of ballot anomalies (linked above) and statistical anomalies (linked above) and get over to our DOCS tab...we have more critically important info there than I can fill you in on.

I've been trying to archive as much as I could on the fly...but it really is just 4 of us over there, trading shifts babysitting a huge effort.

this is honestly overwhelming yet galvanizing on how we need to be more active, indeed even proactive in spreading the word and being the media ourselves. Blogs like yours that summarize and present the facts seem to be our only window into the corruption that threatens our democracy especially when the corporate media shunts what should be valuable airtime to sinnyness stories, fluff and even more corporate spin and distraction.
thanks and keep it up.

Your counter-productive response was exactly the opposite of what is needed, exactly the line I got from this group upon my last desperate plea.

Please keep this in mind, JD: You are responding to only TraLaLa with your thoughts there. While I don't know how many of "this group" responded unsatisfactorily during your previous plea, allow me to remind you of how many read The BRAD BLOG (and comments) versus how many actually post comments here. The difference between those two numbers is enormous. So please don't take any one commenter, or any several commenters as indicative of the entire community that reads along here.

Hope that reminder is helpful! And thanks for your continuously tireless efforts!

Can't tell you how much I appreciate the spanks / thanks, Brad. Nice backhanded smack during what might be my darkest hour, way to (publically) shame me while I'm taking up the mantle on your behalf. There are no words to express my disgust and sorrow.

Did you even look at your own archives before this pubic smack? Doubt it. So, these posts will not only be my last posts on this THREAD, they will likely be my last posts here, PERIOD. Allow me to do some research for you one last time, and this time - from your own blog:

On the one hand, I don't find it so surprising at all that Ahmadinejad would have won by a healthy margin. There's a lot of irony in Mousavi's complaints in this regard, held over from when he was prime minister, and while the affluent in Tehran, the youth, and the expats may have been heavily in favor of Mousavi, the entire rest of Iran, that may well take understandable pride in the ayatollahs' stand against injustice, and resent the "international" pressure against them, very well might have voted for Ahmadinejad. There is also talk that some of his performance in the recent debates would have reminded them of certain facts being ignored by the Mousavi camp.

On the other, al Jazeera is reporting that the computerized voting will be reviewed to check the results. That can't be a good sign.

If you ask me, the whole vilification of Ahmadinejad for stuff he did not say, and for questioning what most find reprehensible to question, is completely overblown, and everyone freaking out that a figurehead who cannot do what the ayatollahs don't want him to do is some kind of a villain is stupid, and dangerous.

99 - Wha!? Even Iranian clerics and high ranking military officials are calling this election a stinker.

(From HuffPo:) Grand Ayatollah Sanei in Iran has declared Ahmadinejad's presidency illegitimate and cooperating with his government against Islam."
and
"Former head of Revolutionary Guards contests election. Rezaei, the conservative candidate and fmr head of Revolutionary Guards, apparently publishes open letter strongly contesting iran election."

Not only that, but I understand the most glaring anomaly from the Iranian Ministry is the numbers indicating Mousavi lost his own home town. According to every polling expert in the region, that's damn near impossible.

Meantime, reformist politicians have been arrested, observers barred from witnessing the count, news crews are having equipment and video confiscated, Iranian police are defecting to fight along side Mosavi supporters, and now it would seem like the regime is sending in thugs on motorcycles to kill kids at University of Tehran (unconfirmed). Does this sound like the behavior of a legitimate president elect to you? As for the press - CNN wasn't adequately reporting on Iran at ALL until we started a "CNNfail" thread on Twitter. (CNN has since addressed the criticism and responded with better coverage.)

Interesting note: some Iranians have posed the idea that the percentages were just "flipped" --- that Mousavi actually won the 63 percentile, and the regime was just so frightened by his margin of victory they thought little of inverting the numbers to favor themselves. Made me think if your info re: some machine tabulation is correct, then well, as you say, that info certainly lines up with all we have hurt ourselves learning about stolen elections.

Yes, 99 - I, too, would like to see more information on the numbers and to know more about how this fraud was perpetrated. I haven't been able to find much, either. But with a partial "news blackout" in the region, it doesn't seem as though that news is going to be forthcoming right away. Hell, it takes us years and years in this country to get that data.

I don't want to second guess your "highly respected British Blog", but! Twitter, where Iranians are tweeting this revolution directly, is a more...immediate source of information.

I believe we are victims of a purposeful campaign to misrepresent the candidates and the election in Iran, akin to the media blitz of bald-faced lies about Russia's fight with Georgia last summer, Jeannie. Robert Fisk's sources insist there was no rigging, a bunch of pre-election polls reflect Mousavi with no kind of lead as was reported here. He may have been a contender in Tehran, and with expats, and maybe largely due to propaganda from the West, but not across Iran. In the rest of Iran Ahmadinejad is revered for helping the poor. He feeds them, gets them educations, works hard to raise their prospects. The more advantaged are pissed off at him for spending a quarter of the country's money in this effort, saying it is causing inflation.

He may be a bumpkin fundamentalist who squelches the more cosmopolitan instincts of some of the people, and I certainly can't hang with the executions and the dress code stuff, but it turns out that he has gone a VERY long way to help the common man in Iran. So, in a way, personally, I'm surprised he didn't win by a bigger margin.

I have a bunch of links at my blog that point to different conclusions and they aren't flimsy... especially not those polls at the Lenin's Tomb link.

We scream about being propagandized by our own MSM, but fail to see just how propagandized [blinded] we are when the chips are down. We believe the reports of the JSOC assassination teams sent into Iran. We believe the reports of U.S. funding for terrorist groups to help destabilize Iran, bring about regime change, so Halliburton can go in and rake in more bucks there. We hear about this stuff for years, and we see Obama going right along with it, but then, when the best opportunity to create intense enmity toward the regime is at hand, suddenly we start believing the MSM and the outrageously overblown Mousavi campaign malarky we've been being fed....

Excuse me if I break in on your private argument to bring this back to wisconsin and the stolen election. I would be interested to find out if anyone has any idea on the odds of some relief thru the courts?

I would be interested to find out if anyone has any idea on the odds of some relief thru the courts?

The Kloppenburg camp is holding their cards close to their vests as of now Jon. They have repeated the mantra that they are reviewing the data, etc. and have not yet made their determination whether they will challenge or not.

I could offer speculation as to whether they will or won't, but it wouldn't be worth all that much, as it it would just be speculation. I will say this, however, the media (and the Prosser camp and the G.A.B.) have put a lot of pressure in place to NOT challenge, largely using the line that "Klopp gained only 300 votes through a meticulous recount" to help pressure her not to challenge.

Of course, they make no note of the vast irregularities discovered, nor of the fact that, unlike absentee ballots, irregular or defective non-absentee ballots are NOT removed during the recount, and are included in the canvassed "certified" totals instead.

The only way those ballots come out of the count is if Kloppenburg files a judicial review at this point. So the game is already stacked against her (or any similarly challenging candidate) under WI statutes.

At the risk of showing how computer illiterate I am, how do you do a digg? Have never done one. Thought they were fixed to make conservative posts more popular.

It's easy, Martha! See that "DIGG" button at the bottom of every single story here at The BRAD BLOG? Just click it! If you're not already signed in as a DIGG member, you'll have a REALLY quick sign-up process. After that, you'll remain always logged on (if you like), so all you have to do is click the DIGG button at the bottom of BRAD BLOG stories!

It helps a LOT. As it does when you do the same thing to REDDIT stories by clicking the up arrow on the REDDIT button (when it appears --- they've been having some problems, it seems, of late with their server.)

Had a very wise boss who was discussing problems where I worked. She said, "First , rule out ignorance." Know it is hard to understand my kind of super ignorance of computers when you have been brought up with them. You are very patient. Appreciate your high standards with this site.

This and prior posts highlight half a dozen plastic ballot bags from Waukesha County. Each appears to contain maybe a hundred ballots, and each has a tear or opening next to its seal big enough, you imply, for ballots to have been easily added or removed. From your pictures, readers will judge for themselves whether that would have been possible (let alone easy) without ripping the thin plastic bags, most of which look stretched tight by their seals.

But, charitably to your point of view, maybe it was possible for some unknown somebodies to stuff each of those few bags with a couple dozen more Prosser ballots. And/or remove an equal number of Kloppenburg’s. (Although the latter would have been hard to do without also removing Prosser ballots --- statistically impossible to avoid if you pulled out more than a few because you would be working blind through the narrow openings and would then have to stuff the real Prosser ballots back in again without crunching or creasing them – and all this activity without tearing the thin plastic or breaking the fragile seals.)

But then there would need to be scores or even hundreds more of such bags – not just the few that were found – each with that same dozen or so switched ballots. Nothing less casts valid doubt on Justice Prosser’s 7,004 vote margin.

Anyway, that’s not my main point here.

My main point here is to wonder why didn’t you tell us, Brad, just exactly what happened when those specific Brookfield ballot bags were actually opened and inspected under the watchful eyes of Kloppenburg lawyers and the reserve judge who oversaw it? Your readers are keen to get the whole story, not just the bits you can spin into something sinister.

So, obviously, since you didn’t tell us, we can confidently conclude that all the lawyers found were (1) ballots that added up to the same vote counts as those bags showed on election night, with (2) vote spreads pretty much the same proportion as in the other Waukesha County ballot bags. In other words, yawn, a big “so what.”

Surely you would have been eager to tell us if those bags were stuffed chockfull of nothing-but-Prosser ballots. That might have been a real “smoking gun" but it’s now obvious, Brad, you don’t have one.

Likewise with the voting machine tapes you make such a big deal of in this post. From your numbers, they add up to about 80 votes for Prosser, and no evidence whatever of actual misconduct by anyone. If you find 6,924 worth of more bad tapes (or even a couple thousand), there’d be something to talk about, but you haven’t.

And, similarly, we must have missed your in-depth reporting on the sensational disclosure of “completely unsecured” ballots, because all you actually document are 79 from Verona, and even your report demonstrates that glitch to have been harmless. So we’re still a long way from 3,502 doubtfuls, aren’t we, and that’s the bare minimum hurdle for Kloppenburg to stay in court.

Anyway all your arguments are for naught unless it is true that voting machines were actually hacked. Your assertion that they could have been doesn’t mean they were. And you know as well as I do that it is morally wrong to accuse people of criminal misconduct unless you really do have sound evidence. I’m confident that’s not your intention.

I could spell out why every anomaly you’ve reported is a “so what,” but fair-minded readers can and should read every word of every piece you’ve written on this subject. What they will find are dramatic headlines, followed by statistically insignificant anecdotes and other superficial detail, but mostly a lot of arm waiving, insinuation, and groundless conjecture.

And while that kind of data is required for Kloppenburg to not get laughed out of court, it still gets her nowhere by itself. There has to be credible evidence that such anomalies actually throw the outcome into doubt among anyone but the true believers who were already convinced before they read your blog. And that’s evidence you haven’t begun to give us.

All you’ve documented are the minor, innocent screw-ups to be expected when mostly elderly volunteers work long past their bedtimes under the pressures of election night. We could redo the election a dozen more times and it would be no closer to the perfection you apparently think is required to avoid suspicion.

Clearly, you put a lot of time and effort into exhaustively covering this story. As the muckraker you are pleased to call yourself, you were no doubt eager to find malfeasance. If must be a real bummer for you to have failed.

But take heart, Brad. All your hard work amounted to a great public service, and I for one sincerely appreciate it. I plan to share your blogs with as many people as I can. Because with Assistant AG Kloppenburg presumably set to announce her legal appeal tomorrow, all Wisconsinites of good faith should be made aware of the real deal.

And the real deal is that ace investigative reporter Brad Friedman looked closely into the election and found nothing that raises legitimate doubts about Justice Prosser’s victory or the honesty of Wisconsin’s election process.

Thanks for your comments. They largely speak for themselves, however a few are actually worth responding to. Before that, I should note that it doesn't seem like you read this article (or ones prior) particularly carefully.

But to the parts worth response:

you know as well as I do that it is morally wrong to accuse people of criminal misconduct unless you really do have sound evidence.

No one has been accused of criminal misconduct other than those for whom "sound evidence" has been presented. No one. That would, indeed, be morally wrong. As morally wrong as it would be to accuse someone of doing that, without presenting any evidence at all.

That is correct. While just over 3,500 irregular Prosser votes removed from the count would be enough to swing the election, as per WI statutes, I do not have the resources to be in all 72 counties, or to even be in one, for that matter, or to read all 3500 pages of minutes in this short time (which does not include Waukesha's minutes that are STILL not posted for the public, and likely are at least that long on their own.)

However, I am happy to report on what I can, demonstrate how terrible Wisconsin's election system is, and hope that those who do have the resources are able to take appropriate actions to bring real, citizen-overseeable, transparent self-governance and democracy to Wisconsin. They deserve it. I'm sorry you seem to feel otherwise.

All you’ve documented are the minor, innocent screw-ups to be expected when mostly elderly volunteers work long past their bedtimes under the pressures of election night.

Others can and will judge what we've reported here on its merits and determine what it is worth or isn't. But I'm quoting the above so I can mention how absolutely appalling, how shameful, how "morally wrong" it is --- and you are --- that you would attack patriotic volunteer poll workers, without "sound" evidence, or any evidence at all, as you just have.

You, sir, should be ashamed of yourself. I suspect, however, that you are not capable of that.

Best of luck in your fight against democracy out there. Wisconsin will overcome you nonetheless, I am quite certain. And thanks again for your thoughts.

Brad,
You sure had me fooled. With your purple prose about “Wisconsin’s ‘dog and pony show’ faith-based ‘recount”” and your claim of “messes and mistallies across the state,” one might be forgiven for supposing you were talking about the whole state and not just the handful of places you have sufficient time to report on accurately.
So thanks for honestly admitting why there’s so little real beef in what you’ve written so much about.
All the best,
Ralph

It's interesting how some people are only interested in the details of election administration when it leads to big, dramatic upheavals. "Good enough for government work" is good enough for them.

They don't want to hear about elections officials who don't follow their own procedures, smirk at and ignore established professional standards, and allow Mack-truck sized holes in security and chain of custody --- unless it's gonna result in a big showy overturned election.

Luckily, documenting irregularities in our elections is important to many, many more folks --- those who actually care about the non-partisan administration of our public elections, and yes, even the very unsexy, unshowy details and following wherever they lead.

It's inevitable that the 'nothing to see here, move along' crowd is dismissive of this level of documentation. Yet they are always shocked --- shocked! --- when a major election with major implications for our future has major irregularities, when it's frankly too late to anything substantive about it. Too late to rectify the many factors that allowed irregularities to accumulate in the first place. 'Someone should have done something!,' they say....

DES,
I for one am fascinated by the details of election administration, which I why I spent a few hours reading all that Brad wrote on the Wisconsin spring election and recount, plus some of his prior posts on voting issues elsewhere. With elections as close as they are these days, it is important that we clean up any sloppiness, even if there is no evidence of actual wrongdoing. The mere possibility that voting machines can be hacked is profoundly disturbing.
But Brad’s flaming headlines implying widespread malfeasance that he now admits he can’t document are actually harmful to raising consciousness about real (rather than imagined) issues.Brad’s partisan exaggeration is simply self-discrediting and makes it easy for people to tune out and walk away. That’s a pity because he does have some important things to say.
Ralph

Your comments here do not jive with Brad's report as I read it. Did you really read this piece? There are many points Brad makes that you either don't address or misreport. I'd rebut you but I'm not at all convinced you've actually read the article yet.

But, certainly, please do send out Brad's report to as many people as you can.

When you say--Despite those chain of custody violations, and despite the ability to actually confirm that all of the ballots counted during the "recount" were the ones actually cast....--

don't you mean--despite LACKING the ability to actually confirm that all of the ballots counted during the "recount" were the ones actually counted...?

I can't make sense of it any other way. It's the chain of custody violations which takes away the ability to ascertain whether the ballots are the same, no?

(Here's the whole sentence/paragraph in case that makes it easier to find--

Despite those chain of custody violations, and despite the ability to actually confirm that all of the ballots counted during the "recount" were the ones actually cast, and despite the Kloppenburg campaign's objections to them, as noted for the record in the minutes when many of the irregularities were discovered, the ballots are being counted and included in the "recount" results as per WI law, at the approval and discretion of the Boards of Canvassers in Waukesha County and elsewhere.)

Yes, "faith-based" voting is a snarky characterization of using unverifiable voting machines, but an accurate one: unless you are capable of seeing & verifying the data being recorded inside the machine, by definition you are taking the results on faith. If no human being counted the ballots in the first place, then by definition it can't really be called a RE-count, but at best a machine re-tabulation, also based on faith that the machine recorded what the voter intended. The 'dog and pony show' is a quote from another blogger. It isn't just "a possibility" that voting machines can be hacked, it has beendone. None of these are inaccurate.

Where you infer "malfeasance", others read incompetence and sloppiness.

Oddly, we never get any complaints of "partisan exaggeration" whenever Brad reports on Republicans seeking accountability and verifiability, like, say, Joe Miller in Alaska or Doug Hoffman in NY 23, or criticizes Democratic officials like AZ Atty General Terry Goddard, to name just three.

You sure had me fooled. With your purple prose about “Wisconsin’s ‘dog and pony show’ faith-based ‘recount”” and your claim of “messes and mistallies across the state,” one might be forgiven for supposing you were talking about the whole state and not just the handful of places you have sufficient time to report on accurately.

It looks like Des already replied to your misconceptions about my use of "Dog-and-Pony Show" (quoting another observer of the "recount"), and of the use of the word "recount" in quotes. As to "messes and mistallies across the state", yes, there were messes and mistallies across the state. Did you not bother to peruse any of the daily "recount" updates posted by the G.A.B.? The ones showing miscounts in every single county? The ones where county after county, even now, fail to report "Total Ballots Cast" as directed by the G.A.B. the day before the "recount" even began several weeks ago? Have you not bothered to read any of the minutes posted by the G.A.B. from each county, documenting the many "messes and mistallies" seen in county after county?

I'm fairly certain the answer to those questions is clear to both you, and everyone else reading along.

I'm just surprised you didn't take this opportunity to take another shit on volunteer poll workers working to support your democracy and your right to self-governance, whether you give a damn about it or them or not.

So thanks for honestly admitting why there’s so little real beef in what you’ve written so much about.

And thanks for pulling more shit out of your ass, but not smearing it on poll workers this time!

Brad’s flaming headlines implying widespread malfeasance that he now admits he can’t document are actually harmful to raising consciousness about real (rather than imagined) issues.

Interesting that you (incorrectly) attempted to spank me in a previous comment by charging that it is "morally wrong to accuse people of criminal misconduct unless you really do have sound evidence," but have no problem with accusing me of "implying widespread malfeasance" without providing any evidence for that charge whatsoever.

If you had any character, you would retract the insinuation and apologize for it. I'll not hold my breath for that, however.

Brad’s partisan exaggeration is simply self-discrediting

"Partisan"? For what party?? Kloppenburg is an independent. And, as Desi already mentioned above as well, why weren't you here calling me out for my "partisan exaggerations" when I was documenting the failures of Alaska's elections in support of Tea Party Republican Joe Miller after the 2010 general election? Or of New York's elections in support of the Conservative Party's Doug Hoffman after the NY-23 special election? Or of Texas' election in support of conservative Supreme Court Justice Steve Smith after the 2006 Republican Primary? Or of New Hampshire's elections after their debacle of a 2008 primary in support of Republican Albert Howard and against Democrat Barack Obama?

And, the biggest question of them all, how much longer are you going to be hanging around here making an ass out of yourself?

While I hope you do hang around, frankly, it's just sad to see you make such a fool out of yourself. But, at least you didn't attack poll workers twice in a row. Great work!

Ralph Swoboda, desperate to try and save any sort of face tried again @ 115 with:

The first definition of “partisan” given by dictionary.com is “an adherent or supporter of a person, group, party, or cause, especially a person who shows a biased, emotional allegiance.”

Okay. I'll bite. To what person, group, party or cause as I am "partisan" towards? I asked you that previously, you failed to answer. Will you do so this time? Or obfuscate more in hopes of distracting from your many failures and embarrasments documented in this thread already?

Your words speak for themselves (along with the headlines on your blog), and I stand by mine.

Got it. It's "morally wrong to accuse people of criminal misconduct unless you really do have sound evidence," but it's perfectly acceptable to accuse someone of having done that with no evidence whatsoever to back up the claim. You stand by that.

It's "morally wrong to accuse people of criminal misconduct unless you really do have sound evidence," and yet it's perfectly acceptable to accuse someone of charging malfeasance with no evidence to back up the charge whatsoever. You stand by that.

Got it. You have no morals. And you stand by that.

You also shamefully attack patriotic poll workers, and stand by that as well.

When, in my original comment, I pointed out something on which we agree (namely, that it is morally wrong to accuse people of criminality without sound evidence), I was in fact being sincere when I added the very next sentence: “I’m confident that’s not your intention.”

I did not mean that sarcastically, nor did I (nor do I now) believe that is what you’re up to.

So that’s why I must immediately bring the following to your attention so that you can correct it without further delay. You stated in your post above:

“All we now know is that, in fact, criminals --- particularly those insiders with direct and largely unfettered access to both the tabulating machines and the ballots, people like Kathy Nickolaus --- easily could have committed election fraud . . .”

Brad, I truly am confident that this was a minor, innocent screw-up on your part and that you didn’t really mean to say that Kathy Nickolaus is a criminal insider – even though that is literally, grammatically what your words mean.

Even if you think you were just being ambiguous (actually, you weren’t – it really was a screw-up) – that you meant “insiders like Kathy” and not “criminals like Kathy” (I try to be charitable) --- surely we’ll agree that you should not let this ambiguity go unresolved.

We all make innocent, minor screw-ups from time to time – I do, election officials do (both paid and volunteers), even ace investigator Brad Friedman does now and then. Just wanted to give you a heads up so you can fix this one.

Cheers,
Ralph

P.S. Even if you and your resident fan club honestly can’t see it (I’m sure you really do think you are non-partisan middle-of-the-roaders), trust me Brad on this one as well: It is obvious to any visitor who is not a left-wing partisan that this site belongs to one.

P.P.S. To save you writing another comment: Violating legal requirements is not criminal but it is malfeasance, which you do imply to have been widespread in this election. (Jeez, Brad, that’s what this posting was all about. I thought that showing malfeasance was exactly your goal here. It’s just that you haven’t shown anywhere near enough to justify a frivolous lawsuit by Ms. Kloppenburg seeking to invalidate her defeat --- which is what her non-partisans are hoping for.)

P.P.P.S. Exposing the shoddy sloppiness of your work is so easy it’s hard to quit, but I’ve said what I came here to say and I’ve tormented you enough. So I probably won’t be back for awhile, if ever. So long, and peace.

I'll admit it, the one thing you singled out for focus in comment #118 was the ONE thing I wasn't sure about in reading Brad's piece(aside from my little edit suggestion). I'm not sure Kathy Nickolaus has NOT been involved in criminal activities(sure sounds like she's been involved in any number of as yet unexplained outcomes and procedures that would seem to stink to high heaven and about which you don't seem to care in the slightest) but as far as I know to date she hasn't been CONVICTED of any.

So there may be some merit to that one point of yours.

But while you have lots of attitudinal comments to make concerning that one highly selective item, you provide not a single word in answer to all the legitimate questions Brad puts to you. Not one. Slimy.

"Calumny is at its best in poisoned exaggeration of real weaknesses and silence on merits."

Richard Swoboda, with tail between legs, suggesting he may never return again @ 118 said:

When, in my original comment, I pointed out something on which we agree (namely, that it is morally wrong to accuse people of criminality without sound evidence), I was in fact being sincere when I added the very next sentence: “I’m confident that’s not your intention.”

I did not mean that sarcastically, nor did I (nor do I now) believe that is what you’re up to.

Ah, I see.

In that case, having now looked into your background, Richard Swoboda of Madison, WI, I'll just note that it would be morally wrong to hide your background as a child molester when you comment here. Though, I'm confident that was not your intention. I do not mean that sarcastically.

You stated in your post above:

“All we now know is that, in fact, criminals --- particularly those insiders with direct and largely unfettered access to both the tabulating machines and the ballots, people like Kathy Nickolaus --- easily could have committed election fraud . . .”

Brad, I truly am confident that this was a minor, innocent screw-up on your part and that you didn’t really mean to say that Kathy Nickolaus is a criminal insider – even though that is literally, grammatically what your words mean.

Actually, I did not say at all "that Kathy Nickolaus is a criminal insider", neither literally nor grammatically, and I stand by the partial sentence of mine above that you have accurately quoted.

If you feel I should have used different grammar, albeit mine is accurate and correct, I'll be happy to see how you feel I should have worded that phrase, and I will consider using it as a replacement if it might be clearer than the phrasing I originally used (the phrasing I stand by at this time.)

Even if you think you were just being ambiguous (actually, you weren’t – it really was a screw-up) – that you meant “insiders like Kathy” and not “criminals like Kathy” (I try to be charitable) --- surely we’ll agree that you should not let this ambiguity go unresolved.

If you bother to grammatically map the sentence out, you'll see that I did not write "criminals like Kathy", as you inaccurately charge, but rather "insiders...like Kathy".

Though I'll take this opportunity to note that Kathy Nickolaus was granted criminal immunity in exchange for her cooperation with state prosecutors in 2002 when a number of her colleagues in the Assembly Republican Caucus were sent to jail after being found to have used government resources for partisan political purposes. Nickolaus was one of the government paid resources who illegally used her time as a paid state worker for partisan political purposes.

And, for the record, sitting Justice David Prosser admitted to the same activities that his colleagues were sent to jail for, though after the statute of limitations had already run out on his being charged with the same crimes. We detailed that entire episode in our special investigation here. You're welcome.

We all make innocent, minor screw-ups from time to time – I do, election officials do (both paid and volunteers), even ace investigator Brad Friedman does now and then. Just wanted to give you a heads up so you can fix this one.

While I do make mistakes from time to time (David Lasagna has pointed out two of them in two different stories within the past day --- thank you, David!) I see no correction needed on the point you raise.

And, by the way, it would be morally wrong to hide your history as either a member of the Prosser campaign, or as a registered sex offender when commenting here at The BRAD BLOG.

P.S. Even if you and your resident fan club honestly can’t see it (I’m sure you really do think you are non-partisan middle-of-the-roaders), trust me Brad on this one as well: It is obvious to any visitor who is not a left-wing partisan that this site belongs to one.

"Middle-of-the-roaders"? How many times do you need to keep making stuff up out of whole cloth to cover for your embarrassing errors over and over in this thread? Who said anything about being "Middle-of-the-roaders" whatever that is?

As to being a "left-wing partisan" (there is a "left-wing" party??) again, it's odd that neither you, nor anybody else levied that charge against me during all my months of supporting Republican and Conservative candidates during their election challenges. I still can't imagine why that is? I'm sure you'll be able to ignore that question again in your next reply.

P.P.S. To save you writing another comment: Violating legal requirements is not criminal but it is malfeasance, which you do imply to have been widespread in this election.

Actually, you seem to have a problem understanding the difference between malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance. You also have a problem understanding that malfeasance can, in fact, be quite criminal indeed.

I have not "implied", but reported on, in very specific details, a great many (but by no means all) of the failures in election processes and procedures in WI's Supreme Court Election and "recount" (and will offer even more on that point shortly.) Some of those failures may be due to malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance. Many may be due to simple error or oversight. They may be criminal, or they may not be. If you have taken my reporting as implications of malfeasance, that is up to you. I do not know what these failures are and have not identified them as you have, though it's interesting to see that you have determined none of them represent malfeasance, either criminal or otherwise.

I'm sorry you have not shared any evidence whatsoever to support your, likely-partisan-powered speculation on those points, however. If you have evidence to prove that the many failures detailed on these pages over the last month+ (not at "the 11th hour", as you foolishly and incorrectly tried to argue several times above) do not represent either malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance, I will, of course, be delighted to see your evidence!

To date, you have made many charges, all without a shred of evidence, and all, therefore, morally wrong, as I'm sure even you would agree.

(Jeez, Brad, that’s what this posting was all about. I thought that showing malfeasance was exactly your goal here.

Perhaps you should have asked me about that, rather than making an ass of yourself in your unsupported presumptions?

It’s just that you haven’t shown anywhere near enough to justify a frivolous lawsuit by Ms. Kloppenburg seeking to invalidate her defeat --- which is what her non-partisans are hoping for.)

Actually, malfeasance has absolutely nothing to do with Kloppenburg's decision to seek her statutorily appropriate judicial review, should she decide to seek one. Only irregularities, either due to malfeasance, mistake, etc. that would change the outcome of the election need to be demonstrated in such an appeal. As I detail quite clearly in the article above, which it appears you did not read very closely, the WI recount statutes (9.01) note:

Generally, to successfully challenge an election, the challenger must show the probability of an altered outcome in the absence of the challenged irregularity.

Malfeasance has nothing to do with it. My article above goes on to further explain, as based on WI statutes, how such "irregularities" are identified during the "recount" process. You might wish to read my article more closely (if you even bothered to read it at all) before commenting again.

P.P.P.S. Exposing the shoddy sloppiness of your work is so easy it’s hard to quit,

but I’ve said what I came here to say and I’ve tormented you enough. So I probably won’t be back for awhile, if ever. So long, and peace.

Yup. If I were you, I'd scram too. Though I'd have done it long ago, after that first note in which you smeared volunteer poll workers in hopes of protecting your preferred candidate in the Supreme Court election, and in which you made a number of charges for which you were able to provide no evidence whatsoever (which I believe was morally wrong for you to have done.)

"Torment"? I thank you for that amusing turn of phrase. But you are welcome to try again, chief! As you can tell, I rather enjoy hearing from you!

No child molesting this weekend though, okay? That would be morally wrong for you to do!

You keep promising "adios", but as with your disinformative nonsense I've allowed you to post here, you apparently keep making that up as well.

But yes, best of luck on your continued attempts at misrepresenting both my work, and the mess that was WI Supreme Court's election debacle. Why bother telling the truth, when you can just make shit up? Eh, Ralph?

P.S. Given that the G.A.B. has not even released the minutes from Waukesha's "recount," not sure what your evidence could possibly be that there is not enough evidence of irregularities to challenge the result of the election. (I don't know either way.) But you've made quite clear already that you have no interest in facts, and are concerned only with partisan gain rather than democracy, which is your right, of course. Good luck with that, chief. You are a great American!

If, indeed, your "goal is to motivate non-regular readers of this blog to read every word you(Brad)have written on the Wisconsin recount," I want to thank you and wish you luck in that endeavor. I don't really understand or agree with much of anything you've been saying here, and you weirdly don't answer most(any?)questions you are asked, but if getting more people to read Brad is your actual goal, go for it.

When I initially read the section Brad and Swobo have been arguing about in the above comments, I read it the way I believe Mr. Swobodo does.

Now that Brad has made his case concerning that very section I've gone back and looked at it some more. I think I can see Brad's interpretation of it, too.

I love Brad, Brad's work, and the above piece that triggered all these comments. One of the things I love about Brad is how careful and precise he is with language. He(and his site here)have actually been inspiring to me to work at being more precise with my own words. This for me is one of those rare instances when the intended meaning was not crystal clear.

Maybe confusion here(and I do not for a second think eliminating this one source of confusion would have prevented the overall disagreement) would have been avoided by substituting the word "criminals" with something like "any number of people".

This would change our now infamous section to---"All we now know is that, in fact, any number of people--particularly those insiders with direct and largely unfettered access to both the tabulating machines and the ballots, people (italicized)like Kathy Nickolaus---easily (italicized)could have committed election fraud..."

Not releasing the waukesha minutes from the recount cannot be construed as anything BUT an attempt to run out the clock on the lawsuit which happens tuesday. After all GAB certified the recount and named a winner How could they do that without completed minutes from waukesha county? They are already releasing statements about how overworked they are with the recall elections and the recount going on so I suspect something along this line will be used as cover for not giving up the minutes from Waukesha in a timely manner. With this stunt the nonpartisan nature of the GAB flies out the window as far as I am concerned.

we can confidently conclude that all the lawyers found were (1) ballots that added up to the same vote counts as those bags showed on election night, with (2) vote spreads pretty much the same proportion as in the other Waukesha County ballot bags.

Say what?

The ballot bags didn't show anything on Election Night. The numbers that were produced on Election Night came from the machines --- the easily hacked and manipulated optical scan systems which may or may not have actually "counted" ballots.

On Election Night, the machine count had Kloppenburg winning by 204 votes. The Nickolaus "discovery" of 15,000 additional votes was not reported until two days after the election.

Had you read the very first article Brad and I wrote, you would have noted that we questioned whether the machines had accurately "counted" at a time when Kloppenburg was reportedly "leading."

There is no evidence that the "spreads" for these specific ballot bags were in "the same proportion as in other Waukesha County Ballot bags," because we are not given the count on a ballot bag, by ballot bag basis by the GAB, but, instead, are simply given the County totals.

While valid criticism is always useful, it appears to me that you are making crap up from whole cloth. Either you have no clue what it is that you are claiming, or your comments on this thread reflect a disturbing lack of intellectual integrity.